Shardlet Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 As I have read in the forum comments here and in other Brandon Sanderson related comment sections, I have noticed a number of die hards in the community expressing something on the order of 'I'm pretty sure BS said...but I can't find the quote right now'. It is clear that many of the hardcore sharders sometimes have a difficult time finding definite quotes from BS to support suppositions and theories as well as general commentary. From the point of view of a barely novice sharder, hunting down and reading all of the Q&A's that Brandon has done in the last 8 years is terribly daunting. It seems that everyone concerned could widely benefit from a compendium of BS quotes to read/search/study in the pursuit of better-informed theories and exchange of information. I recognize that this may be challenging, but I suspect there are enough die-hards to crowd source the sifting of all the Q&A's to separate out and categorize (i.e., Mistborn, Stormlight, Cosmere...etc.) the pertinent quotes from the fluff. Is something like this in the works? Because I would sure like to get caught up with everyone else. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 In principle theoryland and coppermind serve that niche, but it just is impossible to consolidate everything. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet Posted May 13, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 Coppermind I am familiar with but I have not investigated Theoryland yet (though I have heard of it). I can't speak for Theoryland, but Coppermind being a wiki is topic based and therefore inherently cumbersome to do a catch up read of pertinent questions (say, to Cosmere) in order to catch up. Easy to pick up character, event, geography details but the nuances of some of the Q&A's I have read seem to be lost on it. Now, there me be an aspect of the Coppermind I have missed, but it seems that this would be an inherent limitation to a wiki type database. I see that it would be very challenging but there must be somewhat to conduct a broad distillation of these Q&A's in order to at least isolate out non-cosmere (in terms of universe rather than info directly related to Adonalsium issues) stuff. I know that, if given the text of several Q&A's, I would be happy to participate in such a distillation and sorting of the questions and their answers. Obviously, it would need to be headed up by a die hard or two (or three...) in order to establish a format for such a distillation, farm out the grunt labor, and to make the final compilation, but I bet there would be many users here which would also be willing to put effort as far as data mining goes. Many hands make light work . Please recognize that this is truly a question and an offer of help rather than a complaint or a criticism (especially not to be taken as a criticism of your prompt and welcome response PM). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted May 13, 2013 Report Share Posted May 13, 2013 (edited) The Theoryland interview database is our best bet: http://theoryland.com/wheel-of-time-interview-search.php It contains a vast amount of information (and especially Wheel of Time related information) from a wide variety of sources. Originally, one of our members, Zas, created a thing called the Brandonothology, which was a compendium like you are talking about. However, the Brandonothology got way too long, so it is depreciated in favor of Theoryland's database. We (and by "we", I mean Windy) assist Theoryland with inputting and tagging things, but we are a bit behind. But for stuff that is less recent, it is essentially perfect. If you want information on a specific topic, I encourage you to go to the Coppermind (the "Wiki" link up at the top). The more cosmere related articles have very specific citations for something that Brandon said, and is probably the most efficient way to consume this information as a new Sharder, instead of poring over hundreds of interviews. We really try to keep the wiki up-to-date and informative, but it is always a work in progress. We try to have very good citations so even if an article's quality isn't the best (we don't have all that many regular editors), at least you can verify if that random fact about Shards or Hoid is accurate. It is really hard to be a new Sharder. I really do not envy you. But I really hope that the resources that exist are helpful, and at least make it a bit easier. If people are like, "I don't have a quote for that" and you don't believe them, feel free to call them on it. Nine times out of ten the information is in the Theoryland database and either Windy or I have heard of it before (because he inputs the info, and I read basically all of it XD). But it is a monumental effort, and the search in the database isn't the best, so sometimes it isn't the easiest to find the information. EDIT: Looks like I have been ninja'd. I would say some of the best Coppermind articles to read are Shard, Hoid, and Odium. Those contain a lot of the very important information from interviews. Edited May 13, 2013 by Chaos 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shardlet Posted May 14, 2013 Author Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 @Chaos I appreciate the info on Theoryland. I will definately check it out. Apparently I was writing my post at the same time as yours. As to people saying "I don't have a quote for that" (referring to "I heard/read but can't pin it down"), I haven't run accross any that I haven't believed them yet (in fact most have subsequently produced a link or someone else has for them). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chaos Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 Good, that's what usually happens Almost all the time, they find their citation in that. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 Though we do occasionally have phantom-facts floating around. I was recently horrified to find that the "fact" that "shardblades are stored in the Spiritual Realm" is not only completely unconfirmed, but RAFO'd on top of it (though I do find it to be highly likely, myself). 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Monstrosity Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 Though we do occasionally have phantom-facts floating around. I was recently horrified to find that the "fact" that "shardblades are stored in the Spiritual Realm" is not only completely unconfirmed, but RAFO'd on top of it (though I do find it to be highly likely, myself).I'm not entirely ceratin it isn't avaialbe somewhere - I've seen RAFOs that were also answered before and after. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kurkistan Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 (edited) You're right that something being RAFO'd once doesn't mean it wasn't answered later, I was feeling dramatic Though, in this case, it being RAFO'd is suggestive because no new releases or information pertaining to that question has come out since that question was asked. Therefore, if Brandon is on his toes about what he is and isn't RAFO'ing, a RAFO in the past is a sign that the answer is less likely to be found, if you're deciding between a verdict of "I could have sworn" and "I guess I was mistaken" and/or debating whether to commit to an archive-trawl. Edited May 14, 2013 by Kurkistan 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 We should totally bug Joe about building a better search feature for the database since he can monkey around with the code now. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe ST Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 It's on the list of things to fix. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Windrunner Posted May 14, 2013 Report Share Posted May 14, 2013 Joe, you da man 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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